Vietnam Culls 10,600 Poultry in New Bird Flu Fight
Date: 24-Dec-04
Country: VIETNAM
Experts, including the World Health Organisation, have warned of an Asian bird flu pandemic which could kill millions of people. Many say that the onset of cooler weather could lead to the virus spreading.
In a directive seen by Reuters on Thursday, Phat wrote that the virus had been found in seven communes in six southern provinces in the Mekong Delta in December and more than 10,600 poultry culled in an attempt to prevent it spreading.
"Weather changes, especially falling temperatures, make good conditions for the bird flu virus," he said in the directive sent to all provinces. "That is why the disease has increased in December from November and October."
The heavy movement of poultry in the lead-up to the Tet, or Lunar New Year, festival in February could also spread the virus, Phat said.
A total of 32 people -- 20 in Vietnam and 12 in Thailand -- have died of bird flu this year.
All but one of the known human victims caught it from direct exposure to infected fowl. The other was a Thai woman thought to have got it from cradling her dying daughter all night.
But the experts fear the H5N1 virus could get into an animal, most probably a pig, also capable of hosting a human flu virus. The two could then breed a mutant strain to which the planet's human population had no immunity.
Such a pandemic could kill millions, WHO officials say.
Vietnam has yet to re-introduce a ban on moving poultry around in southern provinces imposed earlier this year as the H5N1 virus ravaged poultry flocks across a large part of Asia.
However, the ministry has told local authorities that ducks -- which experts believe can carry the virus without showing symptoms, like the migrating wildfowl thought to have brought it to Asia -- should be kept inside until the Tet festival ends.
On Wednesday, regional agriculture officials met in Ha Dong, an area near Hanoi hit hard hit by the H5N1 bird flu virus, to discuss plans to prevent fresh outbreaks, state-run media said.
Bui Quang Anh, head of the ministry's animal health department, was quoted by the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper as telling officials at the meeting that Vietnam should open a new campaign to stop the smuggling of chickens from China.
"We have assigned the provinces bordering China with the task, but it has not been done thoroughly," Anh was quoted as saying.
Outbreaks of the H5N1 strain -- which killed 70 percent of the humans it infected this year -- often go undetected in China's poultry population, microbiologist Guan Yi of the University of Hong Kong told Reuters.